There are a few things on this list at the moment, as I haven't had the time, or money for the last few months.
I want to have a play with both the Raspberry Pi and Arduino systems... haven't really got a plan for the Arduino though, but there are a few options for the Pi:
- A car media manager, combining a few gig of music, and a bluetooth dongle, The Pi can supposedly create it's own hotspot and act as an apple airport system. This will allow my, or other people to stream music to it, which it can play through the stereo. If I don't want to use the phone to stream podcasts, I can use the inbuilt music to play.
- A similar idea, but over wifi, and able to be streamed to by a pc as well... I haven't seen any writeups of this, but it seems like it should be doable. This will allow me to use the tablet to watch hockey, while using the better speakers - and move more than a meter away while I do so. Ideally this would become 2 or more speakers, in different rooms, with a way to switch between all/ some/ one of them.
I also have plans to build a tricopter that is stable, for the purposes of cave exploration - a long term goal would be to use it to generate a 3d map of the cave system using computer vision, or other technology. But even with a manual control system it will be a fun way to get wetline/highline footage, and some cool climbing shots.
And I have the PCB for a Nixie clock that I got from kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/8807675/nixie-tube-clock-project, so it seems like a bit of soldering is in my future once I obtain the $100 or so worth of components, fortunately the board is already programmed, so it's a simple matter of building the board and adding power, and making a cool case to make a nice steampunk clock.
Saturday, 23 November 2013
Tricopter Progress
Spontaneous Projects is a chronicle of all of my projects, a reference for me, and a way to prevent others from making the same mistakes.
So, last week I ordered $330 worth of RC equipment from HobbyKing's Australian warehouse to build a Tricopter, with the intention of using it as a mobile filming platform.
At the moment I'm only partway through the build, having only completed parts of the electronics, as the Flight Controller mainboard arrived with an out-of-whack y-gyro which prevents it from powering up properly. It did allow me to test the transmitter/receiver components, and I was able to test the motors independently, but the full build will have to wait until the board gets replaced - hopefully under warranty, but I'll buy another one if need be.
I found the following sites invaluable in the planning of this project, and the component selection:
http://www.averticalview.com/files/tricopter_build.pdf
http://rcexplorer.se/projects/2011/09/the-tricopter-v2-5/
The latter also links to some interesting First Person View transmitters which may be applied further in the future, once I have the money to build such a setup.
I ordered all the components to build a quadcopter, but the plan is to start with a tri, with some spare parts, and only make a quad if it won't lift a set of ay-up lights and some filming equipment.
Parts list:
In addition to this parts list a 12V power supply is required, I happen to have one, and the charger uses clips, so the exact power supply is not important. The KK2 FC board has an in-built battery tone as I understand it, so the battery monitor isn't required, although I will likely use it to monitor batter state prior to flights as it has a 4 state indicator, rather than the 2 state of the FC. Likewise the UBEC is probably surplus, as a few extra wires could power the receiver off a speed controller.
The basic wiring diagram is shown below, in hindsight I'd use the x60 connectors on all 12v connections in order to allow changes of components, and bullets on all of the motor connections.
I'll go through the exact input and output connections in a later post when I can check them, as well as a few pictures of the build.
So, last week I ordered $330 worth of RC equipment from HobbyKing's Australian warehouse to build a Tricopter, with the intention of using it as a mobile filming platform.
At the moment I'm only partway through the build, having only completed parts of the electronics, as the Flight Controller mainboard arrived with an out-of-whack y-gyro which prevents it from powering up properly. It did allow me to test the transmitter/receiver components, and I was able to test the motors independently, but the full build will have to wait until the board gets replaced - hopefully under warranty, but I'll buy another one if need be.
I found the following sites invaluable in the planning of this project, and the component selection:
http://www.averticalview.com/files/tricopter_build.pdf
http://rcexplorer.se/projects/2011/09/the-tricopter-v2-5/
The latter also links to some interesting First Person View transmitters which may be applied further in the future, once I have the money to build such a setup.
I ordered all the components to build a quadcopter, but the plan is to start with a tri, with some spare parts, and only make a quad if it won't lift a set of ay-up lights and some filming equipment.
Parts list:
 |
| Parts list -- you only need 1 pack of MM servo leads (10cm), and for a quad I recommend another 10 pack of bullet connectors. |
The basic wiring diagram is shown below, in hindsight I'd use the x60 connectors on all 12v connections in order to allow changes of components, and bullets on all of the motor connections.
Two team +/- logger
Spontaneous Projects is a chronicle of all of my projects, a reference for me, and a way to prevent others from making the same mistakes.
Despite the number of draw backs of +/- (goals for - goals against while the player is on the ice) as a stat for hockey , it works as an indication of a players performance if it's looked at in comparison to the rest of the team, and as a long term average.
Given that I am usually trying to manage and coach both benches, recording this by hand is tricky.
I found a few loggers spread across the interwebs, but they suffered from a few drawbacks: generally they had fixed, and small team sizes, and could only be used for a single team. So I decided to write my own for my win 8 tablet.
Full program and VS source:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7chfwo0mlyv7a48/PM1.2.rar
Given that the primary purpose was a graphical front end it seemed easier to use VB, despite having no prior experience in the language. The original program was designed to be as simple as possible, just select the players on the ice, and hit the home or away goal.
Like many such projects once the basic functionality was working, it suffered from expanding scope, changing the team colours, adding the players separately to the main screen, and exporting the data as a comma separated text file in such a way that it can be imported into Excel for further analysis
Still to be added is an import function, to make roster be editable ahead of time, other than that it works as required, and with full rosters set, and lines being at least partially set it is probably possible to log both teams at once. The 2 times I've tried I've struggled, but the hope is that I can hand it off to an assistant, who can worry solely about who is on the ice, rather than trying to watch and coach as well.
Now the interesting part, the code:
Despite the number of draw backs of +/- (goals for - goals against while the player is on the ice) as a stat for hockey , it works as an indication of a players performance if it's looked at in comparison to the rest of the team, and as a long term average.
Given that I am usually trying to manage and coach both benches, recording this by hand is tricky.
I found a few loggers spread across the interwebs, but they suffered from a few drawbacks: generally they had fixed, and small team sizes, and could only be used for a single team. So I decided to write my own for my win 8 tablet.
Full program and VS source:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7chfwo0mlyv7a48/PM1.2.rar
Given that the primary purpose was a graphical front end it seemed easier to use VB, despite having no prior experience in the language. The original program was designed to be as simple as possible, just select the players on the ice, and hit the home or away goal.
.png) |
| Setting the Player names and numbers, follow the convention if you are looking to export the data |
.png) |
| Main page, select the players on the ice, and choose home or away goal. Reset after goal deselects all players after a goal is scored. Save writes the text file with the current date. The check box above quit is required in order to exit, so that you can't exit unintentionally. |
.png) |
| Output text file to be imported into Excel |
Like many such projects once the basic functionality was working, it suffered from expanding scope, changing the team colours, adding the players separately to the main screen, and exporting the data as a comma separated text file in such a way that it can be imported into Excel for further analysis
Still to be added is an import function, to make roster be editable ahead of time, other than that it works as required, and with full rosters set, and lines being at least partially set it is probably possible to log both teams at once. The 2 times I've tried I've struggled, but the hope is that I can hand it off to an assistant, who can worry solely about who is on the ice, rather than trying to watch and coach as well.
Now the interesting part, the code:
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